Could Young Justice Return?

We live in an era where no favorite pop culture show is dead forever. If you’re super-popular or beloved, like Star Trek, then they will keep creating spin-offs and sequels. If you’re a cult classic, then you pray to Netflix for a retry after being canceled, like Arrested Development or Gilmore Girls. However, the problem is usually casting. Have your actors aged too much? Will they agree to return, and can you come to a deal with them?

When it comes to animation, though, there are no such worries. So long as you hire artists who can follow model sheets, more content is just a matter of demonstrating paying demand for it. Which is why Young Justice fans are attempting to encourage the creation of more episodes beyond the two seasons the show ran. They’re doing that by watching the two seasons (now available for streaming) over and over and politely contacting customer service, as artist Christopher Jones writes about.

The big question, of course, is how Netflix will factor this fan effort into its decision-making. If I know that fans aren’t “real” viewers but running the streams without actively watching just to raise the numbers, does that mean I take those numbers with a grain of salt? Do I factor in the number of different accounts streaming the show instead of just looking at raw viewing figures? Netflix is notorious for not wanting to talk actual ratings, anyway, so what would make them think this is a good project to revamp? And how does WB Animation feel about the idea? Would they be a willing partner or would they ask for too much money for the rights?

It’s a weird world we live in, where anything nostalgic or fondly remembered could return. Have any of those projects been as good as the originals? X-Files fans were recently heavily disappointed by how poor the six new episodes they got were. Is it a case of “be careful what you wish for”, or maybe “memories are always better”?

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3 comments

Well, I’d say X-Files fans were heavily disappointed by how poor *five* of the new episodes they got were. I’d put Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster toe-to-toe with the best episodes the original series ever produced, and that seems to be a popular opinion among the fandom.

I’m more than a little skeptical that a fan campaign to bring back Young Justice as a cartoon series could be a success. Adult fans are simply not the target audience for DC’s animated series. (Guess we’ll just have to be happy we’ve got live-action movies, direct-to-video movies, and prime-time live-action TV series.) And whatever the fan demand to bring back Young Justice, I’m skeptical that it’s as high as the demand to return to Bruce Timm’s DC Animated Universe, or Batman: The Brave and the Bold. If Warner Animation were going to return to a previous property, I sure don’t see Young Justice being at the top of the list.

I could see a fan campaign being enough to bring YJ back as a comic, though. Batman Beyond’s been popular enough to sustain an ongoing series for a few years now.

Course, without Greg Weisman at the helm, I can’t say I’d be terribly interested. If they can get him onboard, though, I’d buy it.